Before I get to the main content for this blog on ‘trust’….I wanna follow-up on my previous post, and show you this pic of me on the beach today near San Diego. (click pic for enlarged view)
Now, I realize for those of you who live on or near one of the many coast-communities in our country, this is no big deal. But I live in Las Vegas, where water is more precious than a Wayne Newton autograph… and seeing this much water in one place is like… well it’s like nothing I can conjure up in a cute analogy…it’s just awesome. Those two little specks in the background (off my right-hand fingertips) are my daughter and her team-mate frolicking in the surf.
OK….now back to what I "teased" in yesterday’s blog.
I’m drilling through the book "GET CLIENTS NOW" by C.J. Hayden. You can find a link to it on the left sidebar of this blog.
This is not the first marketing/sales/promotions/management/consulting self-help book I’ve cracked. I rarely finish them…they all just start sounding like they’re written by the same cheerleader. This one is kinda different…so maybe, just maybe, I’ll actually get some "news I can use" from this book.
One of the things I like about the book is that it uses quotes from other successful authors of this genre.
I REALLY identified with this short pull-quote on page 18 by Kim Brooks, Marketing consultant and writer.
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"If I could write one golden rule of advertising, it would be: consumers hate advertising. I believe that the internet has finally brought advertising cynicism to a head.
Consumers are simply tired of all the noise being thrown at them. On buses, billboards, coffee cups, grocery carts, every single page of content on every single website, every page of the newspaper, every 10 minutes on TV…there are ads. Consumers have adjusted to this constant barrage: they tune out. But worse than that, they resent it, they distrust it, and they don’t buy from it.
Consumers hate advertising but, luckily, love their friends. You can pummel your Web users with ad after ad with no results. But a single mention of your site from a friend, and he or she will click over faster than you can say ‘go’. With cynicism at an all-time high, an overwhelming number of sites, and the endless barrages of banners, users filter out all but the most trusted, most reliable information. They will listen to their friends’ recommendations, open their friends’ e-mails first, and take their friends’ advice over the most cleverly phrased ad message.
Marketing has now become a trust game. Consumers will listen to sources that they trust, because these are entities that won’t yell at them, click them, or spin them; they will simply pass on relevant, accurate information.
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Actually, I DO have some friends that "spin" me…but I still listen to them, and don’t count it against our friendship.
My guess is, Kim Brooks’ message is behind the many business social-networking sites (LinkedIn comes to mind) that attempt to find and develop business friends that you may rely on to receive or send referrals.
I’ll also admit this blog is a subtle attempt to explain who Dave C is, and thereby gain your trust.
But why not? Brooks is right. Sometimes friends — people with whom we have a trust relationship — are all that we have left to rely on for the straight poop. If, through social networking, blogging, and "virtual relationship building" on the internet, you come to know someone better, then the trust you glean is, indeed, of value.
Sharing a blog and any small part of me you can relate to, only comes back to me in spades through your friendship and trust.
I was on a beach today. ‘Can’t begin to describe to you how wonderful it was to smell the salt…feel the breeze blowing in from Japan, and watch my daughter — whom I love more than life itself — cavorting on the shore.
CourVO
